A student teaches children through a Philips Brooks House program. Seniors this year made large contributions to Harvard's public service programs.

Every year, the Stride Rite Senior Recognition Awards honor four Harvard seniors who have shown an extraordinary dedication to public service during their time at Harvard. This year, the selection committee couldn’t pick four winners. “We went through the nominations and we talked about each student and what they had accomplished and we got stuck on nine,” explains Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) Deputy Director Maria Dominguez. “We just couldn’t take one out.”

The Ames Award, given to a male and female in the graduating class who exhibited a commitment to helping others, is traditionally picked from a handful of nominations.

This year, 42 students were nominated by their peers, double last year’s total.

“Having read the letters, there are some amazing people,” says Ames Committee Member Avik Chatterjee ’02. “You have no idea what kinds of service people are doing.”

The Ames Committee finally chose only two seniors. The Stride Rite Committee returned to the Foundation and requested more money to honor all nine seniors.

So on May 7, when PBHA, Harvard’s umbrella student service group organization, held the annual Stride Rite Public Awards Reception, all nine names were announced.

Among them: Kelly Doran, the co-founder of the Women’s Resource Center. Morgan Bradylyons, Phillips Brooks House Association programming chair and Keylatch tutor. Ariadne Lie, with the Harvard Homeless shelter.

“They’re an amazing class,” Dominguez says.

Service has always been an important part of the Harvard experience, and Harvard is known for having an unusually high proportion of its student body involved in public service.

What changed with the class of 2002 was the number of students who took on prominent leadership roles and the methods they used to achieve their goals. A serendipitous convergence of enthusiastic students and new networks led to the growth of organizations ranging from the Progressive Student Labor Movement to Project Health to PBHA.

Sitting In and Standing Up

In the fall of 1998, first-years interested in progressive issues found a cadre of about five people running the almost non-existent Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM). The group had big ideas, but lacked manpower and support.

So when Benjamin L. McKean ’02 walked into an introductory meeting and expressed interest, he was quickly given responsibility.

“I didn’t have high levels of expectation because I wasn’t involved in high school,” McKean says. “I ended up getting shanghaied into this meeting with [University Attorney] Alan Ryan.”

Before long, McKean was hooked, realizing that Harvard might actually listen to what he had to say.